


self control

by astratic



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Introspection, M/M, Unhealthy Relationships, Unrequited Crush, did you hear me??? i said martin is sad!!!, having a tantrum in the break room at 3am is valid, hey everybody? martin is sad., im playing a little fast and loose with their interactions forgive me, like...that maybe theyre not as great as you thought :/, sometimes when your crush ends up in a coma for 6 months you realize things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-02-07 05:03:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18613705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astratic/pseuds/astratic
Summary: And suddenly here he is, acting as if nothing has changed. Because nothinghasfrom his perspective, and there was scarcely anything to change in the first place, he thinks. What felt earth-shattering to you is only confusing to him, because he’s always taken you for granted. He never noticed you there when you wanted—when you needed him to, desperately—he never gave you a second glance. The truth, truth you’d been running from for years, but which you’ve finally accepted, is that loving the Archivist was the same whether he was awake or asleep. He didn’t notice either way.





	self control

**Author's Note:**

> i hope i have made it clear, but this fic is about martin struggling with the realization that his feelings for jon do not come from a healthy or genuine place! i know this ship is important to a lot of people, so i dont want anyone taken off-guard. martins really important to me and i identify with him a lot, so ive always wanted him to stand up for himself.

You sigh heavily as you slam shut the microwave. You’re long tired of frozen dinners, but there’s not much else to be done since the Institute doesn’t have much in the way of a kitchen—staff weren’t actually meant to live here. You keep banging around in the break room, half wishing someone would hear and come to investigate, but of course they don’t. They never do, anymore.

You aren’t sure why you’re so angry. You drop a fork on the floor and feel a bout of hot rage surge through you; you pick it up and throw it into the sink, the thunderous clang not nearly cathartic enough to soothe your rocketing pulse. Tears well in the corners of your eyes, then, stinging and shameful. You let yourself sob in the mocking quiet; it’s not as if anyone will notice.

You hadn’t been prepared to talk to Jon again: he keeps ambushing you. After everything—months spent at his bedside—you really had given up. And giving up had felt—it felt good, almost. It felt like it was what you needed, even if it left a hole gaping in your middle. There was no more worrying—no more caustic jealousy eating its way through your stomach and dissolving your organs until you felt like a walking bag of it, just ready to burst. Instead, you were simply empty. It had been a relief, even as it felt like leaving a part of yourself behind—it wasn’t a particularly good part, you’d realized.

And yet suddenly—suddenly here he is, acting as if nothing has changed. Because nothing  _has_  from his perspective, and there was scarcely anything to change in the first place, he thinks. What felt earth-shattering to you is only confusing to him, because he’s always taken you for granted. He never noticed you there when you wanted—when you needed him to, desperately—he never gave you a second glance. The truth, truth you’d been running from for years, but which you’ve finally accepted, is that loving the Archivist was the same whether he was awake or asleep. He didn’t notice either way.

It was better, you’d told yourself for months. You’d told yourself as you turned to Peter for help; as you made a deal with him and thought about how much Jon would disapprove—and disapproving was all he ever did, in your direction.

_It’s better that I’m on my own. I’m not worried anymore. I can do what I need to._

“What I need to,” is a phrase you’d struggled with for a long time—since you were a teenager and started having to provide for yourself and your mum. In some ways, this life lesson didn’t really take. Sure, it made you a responsible worker: able to put your nose to the grindstone and get things done when you were forced, but when it came to your emotions—to escapism? You’d always been weak and self-indulgent, unable to draw a line your desires should not cross.

It’s how you got in so deep with your feelings for Jon—a man you barely even knew, for the longest time; you could hardly call him a friend. It was stupid; you knew it was, and yet it seemed harmless, at first: a way to pass the time.

And then the world was ending, and Jon was there at the center of it, being pulled in every direction but yours as you wished only to be there for him: to bandage his wounds and soothe his worries, sometimes at the expense of your own needs. The tragedy of him drew you ever deeper even as he got further and further away.

What a cruel joke, you think, that only after you’ve given up completely is when he comes back and says he  _misses you_. Isn’t that all you ever wanted?

The microwave timer goes off, then, a grating electronic screech, and you feel a bit like screeching yourself. You wonder if a sound like that would pierce through the barricade of Loneliness you’ve built around yourself, or if it would go ignored like all your other pleas for Jon’s attention.

It’s stupid to be angry at him, of course, and what’s more it’s pointless. Jon treated you with such disdain and dismissal for so long, and you panted after him like a lost puppy, taking every insult and brush-off with starry-eyed gratitude. If anything, here is where he is finally attempting to make amends for it—to reach out—and finally,  _finally_  you’re angry. You know it’s pathetic, and you feel so helpless for it. Of all the problems you’re facing now, your lingering feelings for Jon ought to be the least of them, right? At least, if you were reasonable.

You slink back down the hallway, keeping an eye out for any of your coworkers, but you’ve taken to leaving your office only in the dead of night whenever possible. Of course, they couldn’t see you anyway, if they were awake—except Jon, maddeningly, you remind yourself. Always except Jon.

Instead of eating it immediately, you drop the tray of bland spaghetti and meatballs on your desk and flop down onto the couch you’ve shoved into the corner of the cramped room. Your anger has passed and in its place is a deep exhaustion and misery that you’re all too familiar with these days.

You start weeping again, then, but that feels useless, too. No catharsis is enough, lately.

Blaming Jon is easy; he practically does it himself. He has this energy about him, as if everything he’s doing carries some grave importance; as if he’s personally responsible for the whole world. He had it before he became the Archivist, but it’s stronger now: backed up by—well. Backed up by the power of the Watcher. Jon carries a rapt audience around with him—a vortex of attention, scrutinizing and evaluating his every move. It’s so easy to find yourself doing the same thing, reading deep into actions and gestures that in reality mean very little, assigning him responsibility for things he has nothing to do with, just because he commands so much attention.

Jon is not a mastermind, of course. Nor is he your savior. He’s just a person.

You wish you could believe that anyone can save you, but you know that’s foolish. All you have is yourself.

That’s why it made you so angry, you guess. You’ve been just barely treading water for so long—longer than you want to remember, and suddenly Jon shows up and says, “I came back,” as if that’s meant to fix anything.

_Back to do what?_  you think bitterly,  _You never did anything for me._


End file.
